Page 38 - Art Review

The crazy and the dead

The apartment is part of a typically postwar Warsawian block, similar
to my uncle’s nearby home, in the heart of the former Jewish Ghetto,
where I stay when I visit: concrete with panes of reinforced glass; corridors
haunted by listless pot plants. I climb to the exposed roof terrace, the wind
and sound of traffic in my ears, to witness The Prayer and the City. Naked
Chartres (2017), a simplified, monochrome diagram of the labyrinth
on the marble floor at Chartres Cathedral, reversed and cut precisely
in half at the edge of the terrace. Its maker, Tokyo-born Koji Kamoji,
has been resident in Poland since 1959. The mesmerising graphic line
and suggestion of its other half, lost to the city below, triggers a perverse
urge to approach the brink. The sensation is apt when contemplating
rebellions fought and lost in these streets: the uprising of the city’s
remaining Jews in 1943, ending in full-scale deportation, and the Polish
resistance to German occupation, put down in 1944. These events, still
fervent, sacred acts of heroism in the Polish psyche, are commonly invoked
by disparate political factions, not least today’s governing rightwing
nationalist ‘Law and Justice’ (PiS) party. Kamoji’s intent seems less
political, more spiritually rooted. An artist statement confirms that above Koji Kamoji’s The Prayer and the City. Naked Chartres, 2017, installed on the
this is a prayer to the city’s tragic history. The formal starkness does Avant-Garde Institute’s rooftop
not immediately move me to such contemplation (rather, I am thinking
about Kamoji, who has lived through some enormous sociopolitical below Warsaw flyposting, including a ‘Reparationen machen frei’ poster
changes in Poland, and his status as one of the few POC artists exhibited
during Warsaw Gallery Weekend). Perhaps I am also still too much under
the spell of the well-seasoned enchantment inside. Again, I think of my
uncle, whose own eccentric top-floor dwelling, stuffed with junk and
newspaper collages, reflects a long career in poetry, alcohol and observing
Poland’s ‘schizophrenia’ (as he calls it). He used to attend Krasin´ski’s salons.
When I ask him about those days, he answers with a dismissive wave,
and in a low bleat tells me, “Everyone was crazy, but now they’re dead”.

below Corridor in the tower block housing the Avant-Garde Institute

Exiting the Avant-Garde Institute, I notice a wall of posters, variously
advertising a Warsaw Uprising commemorative picnic, a Jewish cultural
festival and a reggae concert. One poster in particular is disturbingly
eye-catching. Printed across an expanse of grey is a version of the infamous
ironwork sign that cynically greeted the victims of Auschwitz, except
here ‘Arbeit macht frei’ is replaced by ‘Reparationen machen frei’. A rightwing
television station is responsible for the poster, demanding Germany pay
reparations for the Second World War; a view popularly held across Poland.
Of course, this is the capital, which like most capital cities tends to be more
liberal, but also the heart of power. Huge antigovernment protests have
taken place in Warsaw, most notably the ‘black protests’ against punitive
laws forbidding abortion. Scrawled in felt-tip beneath the poster’s tasteless
parody is the response of a passerby, offended by the appropriation: ‘This
is how nationalism ends’. I consider the posters, peeling and plastered over
each other, vying for terrestrial attention, against what I have just experi-
enced high above. They make a succinct visual that says as much about
Poland’s fractured psyche in 2017 as most of the art I will encounter.
I followed my visit to Krasin´ski’s studio with an evening of events
at POLIN, Warsaw’s museum of Polish Jewish history. First is the premiere
of Israeli artist Yael Vishnizki Levi’s short film Intimacy (2017), a shadow
play set in a prison and based on a meeting between the artist’s grand-

38 ArtReview